you blush like an ocean in love.

Armin stares at @v1ctimplagued as he speaks, expression carefully smoothed over, impossible to read further than the obvious disappointment that twitches his brow. It’s clear that he wants something.

He remembers comparing Billy to his wayward soldier before, privately in the safety of his mind, but he sees now the similarities are too hard to ignore. His nose still hurts from their last fight — he and Eren had rarely ever came to blows with each other but they didn’t shy away from it either.

Turning his eyes away from Billy, Armin isn’t surprised to find his vision blurring a bit through the tears filming over ocean blue. There’s no shame in them but he’s aware that he’s putting his hand into cage of a feral dog by being so visibly affected. It’s no revelation — he’s always been a crier.

“That hurts, Billy, it really does. I give a fuck about you, I thought that was obvious, I don’t why I did, I mean, I’ve gotten more emotional complexity from fucking children.” He grits the words out from between his teeth because he’s learned to be vicious but he’s never liked showing his teeth. He’s always preferred the shadowy work of manipulation, if he can help it, but he tries, really, not to be that way with those he cares about.

The world had not loved him, so his only weapon against it was kindness and that was a strength and rebellion all its own. Oftentimes, it proved never to be enough.

“You think any of this makes you strong? Makes you better? It doesn’t. You’re just going to keep ending up alone and with no-one to blame but your damn self.” There’s a frustration in his chest that is not aimed at the blond before him but feels like a close enough target anyway. Pushing his fingers through waves of blond, he smoothes his hair back from his face, eyeing Billy was something that wasn’t quite anger but lingered on the edges of it.

“Either you can put some effort into talking to me like an adult and fixing this or you can leave.” He says softly, “but I’m not opening that door for you again if you walk out it.”

The second time in his life he’s fallen short of arguing and settled on the ever painful ultimatum that will dog his steps if it all goes wrong. But he’s tired too, of things not going how they should.

　The irony is Billy cares. It’s just infinitely easier to pretend he doesn’t–that he owes the world nothing, that he doesn’t have any fucks left to hand out–but it just wasn’t the truth. Perhaps it’s the knowledge that even if he amended his ways and learned to be better, who was going to buy it? Who was going to give Billy another chance? Who would see him any differently than him at his worst?

More pressing: how does someone navigate everything if not through anger and destruction?

If he’s learned anything it’s that he cannot rely on anyone but himself. That having sympathy was a one way ticket to gettin’ fucked over or hurt. Sometimes it’s easier to lick his wounds than avoid them altogether. ‘Cause there was no telling what might happen if Billy allowed himself to unravel one day. Tightly bound, knotted, and secure was the only method that had ever worked for him – anything else was a recipe for disaster.

But nothing prepares Billy to be faced with the consequences of his own actions, his own callousness. How jarringly familiar it is to stare at someone’s eyes welling with tears and know that he’s caused it—to know he’s turned everyone into a replica of him as a child, tear stricken and disappointed because they’re constantly being failed. Was it not some goddamn irony? How uglily that twists his insides when he cannot turn away from the shattered blue. Soured, confused and frustrated.

The fight deflates then. It’s no coincidence. The imposing threat of a firmly shut door. Billy wouldn’t blame him as he’s acted like a complete and utter ass. He’s foolish, impulsive and so quick to his own doom. There was no fight standing in front of him but all the telltale signs are there. Locked joints, clenched fists and an electric gaze. Stupid, stupid, stupid Billy couldn’t see he was just fighting himself.

“I didn’t ask for you to care–“ it's a losing game, isn’t it? Psychological warfare against the other is next to impossible. Billy’s not fuckin’ smart. At least not in the way that matters. Deflated and broken, he sighs. It was a cheap blow, he thinks. The one thing that really gets under his skin. The insufferable ache of someone leaving and being done with him. (Again, he doesn’t even blame them.) But there is something unsettling about it that makes him desperate to cling, to really dig his fingers in, and never let go.

What does Armin know about being strong? He won’t ask it because he knows it’s crossing a line. He’s already crossed one. But words can’t be taken back. The truth is Billy doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t have the same emotional fortitude and everything he wants to say will cut. He doesn’t get as much satisfaction from making Armin as he thought he might – it just feels like shit. More reasons to load on the self-loathing. “What is there left to talk about?” He demands, voice losing much spark it had moments prior. A verbal white flag. Understanding he doesn’t want to walk out that door ‘cause he’s never been able to handle things shutting him out. “What more can I even do?”

Armin’s brow curves in with an expression of — something sad and unsettled, that doesn’t quite fit on his delicate features. He doesn’t speak up or talk over Billy but the silence that follows is just as loaded as any words could have been.

Poignant.

“I want you to try. I’m tired of excuses.” His tone is short and to the point — not quite cutting but the blade is being sharpened on his tongue. “I’m tired of you using your anger at the world as a reason to be angry at me. You don’t think I know what the world looks like, is that it? Do you think I’m ignorant to it? Because I’m not, Billy. I know what the world is like and I know how it works but I’m not scared of it the same way you are. Your fear makes you.. harsh. Cruel.” His brow falls into a line and his lips are pursed, looking his age for once. Looking a little older.

“I’ve given you more chances than most but this is the last one you will ever get from me.” The firmness in his tone belays the truth in it — beneath the drinking and the drugs and the parties, Armin is strangely cold, absent is the quirky oddness that lingered in every interaction. The mask, it seems, has been taken off and what lies beneath it is as close to Armin’s real face, his real self, as possible.

“I understood that something was wrong, I just never asked. It’s not my place to pry you open while you’re still alive. I was hoping you’d come to me in your own time and tell me but this?,” he motions between vaguely, “I can’t do this. The.. the cruelty. The resentment.” The words are burning on his tongue, his eyes flickering with heat behind the tears but it burns out slowly.

“I want you to tell me why you won’t talk to me. Why you’re so quick to give up before even trying to fix it. But if you don’t want to, if you’d rather go, I’m not going to stop you.”

Monica Vitti in "Fai in fretta ad uccidermi… ho freddo!" (dir. Francesco Maselli - 1967).

Armin nods to show he’s listening, plating the food and humming every now and then — a practiced sort of attentiveness that gentled some of his more jagged edges.

“Gigs, huh? You a musician or something else?” He’s turning to face Billy after sitting the plated food aside, leaning the small of his back against the counter to face the other. His words settle Armin, they make sense. There is a feeling to Billy he rivals to drifting storms, never staying where it ought to for long.

“Oh, it’s a tale. I used to live in Italy, born and raised, but my folks moved around a lot. From France to Denmark to Canada.. America, eventually.” He pauses, frowning a little.

“I’m here because a friend of mine ran headfirst into the war, stupid boy, but what can I do?” There’s something stubborn in the line of his brow that he smoothes out with ease, following up with: “I’m a mortician,” He waves a hand around the kitchen and smiles cattily, “dying pays the bills.”

“Don’t worry,” His eyes trail over Billy’s form clinically, pushing off from the counter with plate and bowl in hand, and lightly jostling him aside with his hip as he walks past, “you look healthy enough.”

He’s only in the dining room for a moment, back to grab plates and mug, nodding to the press, “bring that along, there’s fixings for it on the table.”

“It’s not a bad place,” He says after a few moments, “there are worse places to be, worse company to have. But what do I know? I spend my time with cadavers, starving artists and Beatniks. Not exactly the picture of respectable society.”

　A musician? Billy chuckles at that. When he was younger he had been really into music (specifically metal) and had fancied the idea of being in a band. However, that dream had been uprooted fairly earlier because it wasn’t the respectable type of work that his father would have accepted. It had been merely a childish dream because Billy wasn’t exactly musically inclined either. It made much more sense he leaned into violence instead. He had always been good with his fists and initially, his father had approved — probably single handedly nurturing it in Billy.

“No, not a musician.” His own eyes drift to his patchwork knuckles: bruising, bruised, and healed over so many times he didn’t know what scar was from what. His lips are cracked up in a small smile. “Fights. Boxing. You know, cockfights? Well humans instead. Not gonna lie it’s pretty gnarly at times but it’s what I am good at and what pays the bills. I go all over to kinda get my name out there.”

Armin’s own life sounded considerably more interesting than Billy’s. Billy had spent a long time in mostly two places until he finally got the nerve to get up and leave as soon as he turned eighteen leaving that shithole of a town behind him, forgetting the shit he didn’t have the strength to take with him, and figurin’ out all his own bullshit along the way. And it was only him — but maybe after his next two fights that would change and he’d finally have an agent to handle all the shit he didn’t have the patience for.

Billy grabs the press and follows Armin, moving to slide into the table seat, and nods slightly. He agrees with that, at least. There were definitely fuckin’ worse places to be, worse people to be around, and so on. But how Armin does what he does, he doesn’t know. Billy doesn’t think he has the stomach for that. Despite his own profession and the level of steel that Billy ended up getting into a ring… it’s different. Everyone’s alive, for starters. 

“How did you end up in that profession?” He asks after a moment since he doubts it was the sort of thing Armin just fell into. But perhaps he was wrong.

“You remind me of my Eren.” He chirps, perking up at the boy’s name. His lips curve into a smile and it’s obvious that he loves him — but in what way, it’s unclear. “I met him when I was 17, he was fresh from Germany, he spoke with his fists and not his words. He was a protector.” He looks up, a question in his eyes that he doesn’t voice.

Are you a protector? But it’s too early for that, too forward of a question.

Armin begins fixing a cup of coffee — two sugars, drowning it in creamer — and nods a little as if to encourage himself to keep talking.

“You should take care, that’s not an easy life.” He pauses and smiles then, “easy lives are the hardest ones to manage.” The question perks him up a bit — he’s more used to people asking about if he’s ever seen a ghost or what it’s like having to cut someone open.

“Eren’s father, he was a doctor, he practically raised me when my grandfather passed. I wasn’t a very healthy child, not by any means, so I spent my time reading his books.” He frowns a little then. “I was… eight, yes, eight when I left Italy. There was an earthquake a few months prior, it destroyed the whole town.” Armin takes a small sip of his coffee. “There was nowhere to bury the dead.” A small pause as he calculates where he wants to go with the story, considers the setting and skips over something.

“I was going to be a doctor, that had been the plan, initially, but I wasn’t good at it. Too cold, my professors said, not personable enough.” Armin looks up at Billy and smiles, but his eyes aren’t warm underneath the memories, “they were right. Cadavers don’t mind though. It’s a privilege too, to be with someone when they’re most vulnerable. You think you’re most vulnerable when you’re alive, when you’re sleeping, but it’s when you’re dead that you know true vulnerability. You lose the twenty-one grams, your soul leaves your body, but it’s still your body, you know? That takes more trust than you can imagine.

“It’s also nice to.. give the families something back. Trauma deaths are the hardest because you’re trying to remake a person, and there’s a beauty in that too, but mostly, it’s just sad. But it must be done.”

He pokes lightly at his bowl of salad. “Most morticians don’t make it through training, the cadavers move, ya know? And there’s some things you.. can’t unsee. It’s hard to take work off, the mindset necessary to stay sane is hard to explain, and there’s always worry that a familiar face will cross my table, but for the time being, it’s.. not horrible.”

Smiling softly after, his shoulders relax from the tension they’d unknowingly gathered. “That was a lot. We can talk about something far less morbid than my work.”

“It’s simple,” Armin is already filling a kettle with water to settle onto the stove. At the mention of names and other pleasantries, the blond smiles a little.

“Oh, love, I’m Armin. You are?” He doesn’t seem the least bit concerned about not knowing the name of the man who he slept, quite comfortably if he had to say, beside. He’s moving like someone with a routine, grabbing a jar of coffee beans labeled “from Mika” in tight and neat cursive, humming softly to himself as he got the hand grinder.

“Now, here’s what you do. When that water starts boiling, taking it off the heat and let it sit — about thirty seconds is perfect. Can’t be too hot. Next,” He motions to the ground coffee he’d prepared, “a few tablespoons of this. Six should do it if you’re making yourself a cup, just three if not. Add the water after, stir till it’s foaming and then let it sit for a few minutes.” He smiles a little after, “simple, right?”

He sets everything aside for Billy as he goes about rinsing off the fruit and salad, humming softly to himself.

Despite the lack of awkwardness, Armin doesn’t really know what to say — he talks to plenty of cadavers but those never talk back. Most of the time.

He peels and slices the grapefruit with care, glancing at Billy and then back. The fruit bleeds pink juice down his fingers and drips leisurely onto the cutting board.

“Don’t mind me asking, but you don’t seem like you’re from around here.” He considers toasting the bread for something warm to offset the salad’s coolness and dips down to find a pan under the cabinet, rinsing and drying it before setting it on the stove.

“Not really from around here myself, so there’s no shame in it.” Armin likes to think he pretends very well, being something he inherently is not, calm and confident and an aesthete. Where it counts, he is those things — he also prefers jazz clubs and bars and drugs when he isn’t staring into forever silent bodies. He is as much privileged as he was that little orphaned boy who could barely afford books, let alone an entire house where he can make space for himself.

He’s careful not to burn the bread — it was expensive.

　It’s a series of unforeseeable circumstances that even brought him to the area. For the last couple of years Billy has been moving from place to place following the work and the fights that line up for him. It suited his desires for the time being and truthfully, he had no desire to put down any real roots any time soon.Despite that, Billy feels far from fitting for the glitz and glamor of the bigger cities. He misses his ocean side home and the quaintness that followed that. But there was no denying the experiences he got moving from place to place was probably something that was long overdue in his life up until that point.

Armin. Definitely not a name he had ever come across before but these particular circumstances were even more unique than any before. He’s very far from home. “Billy, it’s Billy.” He says and turns his attention to the instructions determined to not fuck the other’s coffee up too much. Or at least he would attempt.

Billy takes care to follow the instructions. It doesn’t seem too difficult as Armin had said since it was relatively simple. Boiling the water, adding the coffee, and then allowing it to sit and the water to turn murky and bitter. Perhaps one day he would enjoy it, but he doubts it would be any time soon. If he was pushed into a corner he might make due with coffee but until he preferred his eight hours of rest when the nights allowed.

Billy hums at Armin’s question, gaze turning. “You’re right, I am not from around here.” It’s probably obvious with how starkly he felt in contrast. Those years in Hawkins had ruined him, he thinks. The countryside air stuck to him like a second cologne. Far from a country bumpkin though - he preferred to think he was an ocean baby, born into the shores and the tides. He avoided home nowadays but he knew inevitably he would have to return.

“I was born in California. But I’ve lived all over since then. I go where the gig is, stick around for a bit, then go again.” It’s nice in its own way. Pleasant and full of experiences. But lonely. Lonely enough he was okay sleeping next to a complete stranger for any semblance of companionship. Pathetic but manageable like this. “And where are you from if you do not mind me askin’ and what brings you here?” 

Armin nods to show he’s listening, plating the food and humming every now and then — a practiced sort of attentiveness that gentled some of his more jagged edges.

“Gigs, huh? You a musician or something else?” He’s turning to face Billy after sitting the plated food aside, leaning the small of his back against the counter to face the other. His words settle Armin, they make sense. There is a feeling to Billy he rivals to drifting storms, never staying where it ought to for long.

“Oh, it’s a tale. I used to live in Italy, born and raised, but my folks moved around a lot. From France to Denmark to Canada.. America, eventually.” He pauses, frowning a little.

“I’m here because a friend of mine ran headfirst into the war, stupid boy, but what can I do?” There’s something stubborn in the line of his brow that he smoothes out with ease, following up with: “I’m a mortician,” He waves a hand around the kitchen and smiles cattily, “dying pays the bills.”

“Don’t worry,” His eyes trail over Billy’s form clinically, pushing off from the counter with plate and bowl in hand, and lightly jostling him aside with his hip as he walks past, “you look healthy enough.”

He’s only in the dining room for a moment, back to grab plates and mug, nodding to the press, “bring that along, there’s fixings for it on the table.”

“It’s not a bad place,” He says after a few moments, “there are worse places to be, worse company to have. But what do I know? I spend my time with cadavers, starving artists and Beatniks. Not exactly the picture of respectable society.”

Sorry I smell like formaldehyde can we still make out

“You’re right, I could have.” Blue eyes peer beneath gold, fanning lashes — cunning and warm in equal measure. “I just didn’t feel like sleeping alone.” Let’s the smoke curl around him and feel the gaps in his words where one would look too closely.

He huffs a little laugh at Billy’s words, pushing aside the sheets and stretching his arms over his head, putting his ribs on display.

Cigarette firmly between his teeth, Armin slips from the bed, completely unabashed in his nakedness. He runs a hand through his hair, catching tangles and easing them out as he hums softly, dipping into his closet to pull out of a robe. Black and heavy, soft-looking as he wraps it around himself and ties the middle shut, ashing the cigarette in a stray teacup that resided on his vanity.

He does not have the awkwardness one comes to expect with finding a stranger in their bed, he takes it in stride, and waves Billy to follow.

“Come now, surely you can brew a cup of coffee.”

The house is relatively clean — it’s obvious there was a party but less of a keger than should be expected. Cornflower eyes scan the room as if considering if it was dirty enough to need his immediate attention before he pushed the thought aside and led the other into the kitchen.

“You know how to work a French press?” Armin is decidedly at home in his kitchen, washing his hands before he even opens the fridge, digging out grapefruit and salad alongside a loaf of artisan bread and prosciutto.

“Wash your hands before you touch anything.”

　At least they had that in common. Sleeping with the comfort of someone had used to bother Billy. Now it was a yearning he couldn't quite quench. Something that only grew as he aged and left him feeling entirely too empty. He's become disgustingly sentimental outside of his childhood home — the odd effect of no longer having to be hypervigilant, meaner than anyone around him, and violent all the time.

And naturally, Billy cannot help but look. His gaze doesn't fully meet the other's form. He has some decency to pretend to be immersed in the texture of Armin's pillow instead as his eyes flickered back to the other male. Real people shouldn't look like that ... like they're made of marble, stone, and from a fantasy.

One would think he could be able to brew coffee but he's never been a coffee drinker. Too bitter for his tastes and most of the time his work meant he could sleep into the late morning without a need for any boost. However, he's willing to try and that willingness has nothing to do with how pretty he finds his host. Billy moves from the bed crumpled in yesterday's clothes, a little worse for wear but nothing too bad all things considered, combing through his hair with his fingers and moves barefoot across the floors before clicking his tongue. French press?

He knew people like Armin back home. Real fancy and untouchable, so obviously detached from the world Billy knew intimately. His priorities had been different back then. He hadn't needed and wasn't interested in anything other than the day-to-day survival. "Are there instructions?" It couldn't be too hard, right? He worked with machines on a daily basis so it couldn't be any more complicated. Calloused fingers and roughened palms indicated as much. However, if he's learned anything Europeans tended to be really particular about their coffee.

Billy moves to wash his hands, drying them off afterwards, and turning towards the other male awaiting his answer. 'Cause if he was being perfectly honest - he survived on whatever he found. Food, beer, whatever — far from refined, a reminder of a time before when there hadn't been any choice, and now that Billy did have the luxury to eat or drink whatever, his tastes were remarkably basic bad. "Don't take this the wrong way but I don't remember your name. Or did you even tell me? If I am going to figure out the inner workings of a French Press might as well know the name of my instructor."

“It’s simple,” Armin is already filling a kettle with water to settle onto the stove. At the mention of names and other pleasantries, the blond smiles a little.

“Oh, love, I’m Armin. You are?” He doesn’t seem the least bit concerned about not knowing the name of the man who he slept, quite comfortably if he had to say, beside. He’s moving like someone with a routine, grabbing a jar of coffee beans labeled “from Mika” in tight and neat cursive, humming softly to himself as he got the hand grinder.

“Now, here’s what you do. When that water starts boiling, taking it off the heat and let it sit — about thirty seconds is perfect. Can’t be too hot. Next,” He motions to the ground coffee he’d prepared, “a few tablespoons of this. Six should do it if you’re making yourself a cup, just three if not. Add the water after, stir till it’s foaming and then let it sit for a few minutes.” He smiles a little after, “simple, right?”

He sets everything aside for Billy as he goes about rinsing off the fruit and salad, humming softly to himself.

Despite the lack of awkwardness, Armin doesn’t really know what to say — he talks to plenty of cadavers but those never talk back. Most of the time.

He peels and slices the grapefruit with care, glancing at Billy and then back. The fruit bleeds pink juice down his fingers and drips leisurely onto the cutting board.

“Don’t mind me asking, but you don’t seem like you’re from around here.” He considers toasting the bread for something warm to offset the salad’s coolness and dips down to find a pan under the cabinet, rinsing and drying it before setting it on the stove.

“Not really from around here myself, so there’s no shame in it.” Armin likes to think he pretends very well, being something he inherently is not, calm and confident and an aesthete. Where it counts, he is those things — he also prefers jazz clubs and bars and drugs when he isn’t staring into forever silent bodies. He is as much privileged as he was that little orphaned boy who could barely afford books, let alone an entire house where he can make space for himself.

He’s careful not to burn the bread — it was expensive.

by alexbeckett_

　It's easier when he doesn't know the people. There is no risk of attachment. Just another night that will blend into others and be forgotten after some time. Soon, the other male's face would be indistinguishable in a crowd and Billy could go back to pretending, burying these urges and killing that ache that surfaced in him every so often.

It's harder when they're his type. Pretty, gentle-appearing, and making Billy want to melt in them. He's always gotten carried away. It's why he even does this — find strangers so he will not have to see them again, will not have to face any truths he rather keep hidden, and protect the soured heart he kept in his chest locked behind bone and regrets.

"You could have woken me." He would have left. His eyes follow the other male's movements and he sighs, relaxing some in the bed now that the surprise has washed over him. He should be leaving soon. But he doesn't quite want to just yet. "If I was going to make it all the way to your bed I might as well lose my clothes too," Billy mumbles more to himself than others, deducting on the events that are a little fuzzy from the night prior. He should have been kicked out already, clothes tossed afterward, and night promptly behind them.

"Breakfast doesn't sound too bad," He adds after a second. But it's merely an excuse for a second longer.

“You’re right, I could have.” Blue eyes peer beneath gold, fanning lashes — cunning and warm in equal measure. “I just didn’t feel like sleeping alone.” Let’s the smoke curl around him and feel the gaps in his words where one would look too closely.

He huffs a little laugh at Billy’s words, pushing aside the sheets and stretching his arms over his head, putting his ribs on display.

Cigarette firmly between his teeth, Armin slips from the bed, completely unabashed in his nakedness. He runs a hand through his hair, catching tangles and easing them out as he hums softly, dipping into his closet to pull out of a robe. Black and heavy, soft-looking as he wraps it around himself and ties the middle shut, ashing the cigarette in a stray teacup that resided on his vanity.

He does not have the awkwardness one comes to expect with finding a stranger in their bed, he takes it in stride, and waves Billy to follow.

“Come now, surely you can brew a cup of coffee.”

The house is relatively clean — it’s obvious there was a party but less of a keger than should be expected. Cornflower eyes scan the room as if considering if it was dirty enough to need his immediate attention before he pushed the thought aside and led the other into the kitchen.

“You know how to work a French press?” Armin is decidedly at home in his kitchen, washing his hands before he even opens the fridge, digging out grapefruit and salad alongside a loaf of artisan bread and prosciutto.

“Wash your hands before you touch anything.”

　His eyes flicker open at the touch of warmth that filters through the cracks in the curtains. At first, he was merely going to groan and pull himself tighter under his blankets — however, it becomes apparent that something is off. Blue eyes open to a room distinctly not his own and he's already wracking his mind over the events of the previous night. Honestly, it wasn't the first time he's woken up in the wrong bed but it had been a long time since he's done something like this.

Old habits, die hard it seemed. Billy stretches, hands moving to untangle the mess that has become his hair, and eyes search for the owner of the room 'cause truthfully, he might have consumed way too much at the New Year's party he had been dragged to. "Shit."

Armin thinks he knows the shape of his bed better when there’s someone else in it. The snuffling noises followed by a soft swear are not unfamiliar in any way, and it relaxes him more than a shot of absinthe ever will.

Prying his eyes apart, he tilts his head up from the pillow it was buried in to peer through his hair, sunshine waves tangled together around his face. Pretty thing, is his first thought, followed by the acknowledgment of his wandering eyes before he lays back down, content to laze in the sunlight as it slowly filters in.

“Don’t worry, your clothes are still on.” Armin is simply naked because this is his bed and he’d be damned if he laid in it while smelling of bleach and booze, uncomfortably warm from the rush of dancing. He was already walking the fine line of staining it with formaldehyde and stray blood, no use making it worse.

“Seemed rude to wake you.” Vaguely European accent, already longing for a cigarette or something stronger as he forces himself to sit up.

“Everyone else cleared out a few hours ago,” Reaching over to the bedside table, he snags a pack of King’s and settles back against pillows and the headboard, fumbling under the sheets for a lighter.

Inhale, long exhale, sinking into the mattress as he turns his eyes back to his bedmate.

“Up for breakfast?”

Armin sees those familiar eyes and thinks of fire. He fidgets — brushes his hair forward to hide the twisting burn that crawls up the collar of his shirt. He expects there to be something else there, beneath the hesitancy. Maybe anger, maybe sadness, maybe even the betrayal he’d felt when Bertholdt had revealed the truth — “devils” — but it’s all blank and haphazardly empty in a way that would worry a more moral man.

Armin is no such thing.

“Thank you for not disregarding my letter, I’m sure you understand how urgent it is that we find Zeke and Eren before..” He makes a vague motion and smiles mirthlessly.

“We’ve scoured all of Paradis. The only logical place for them be now is Marley but their method of travel is lost on me. We’ve got the train guarded for the time being.” As if that would help, he almost murmurs, but politely keeps the words to himself. No use in saying what they both already know.

“Eren’s been using the Rumbling as a threat but it’s looking more and more like it’ll be reality soon, the problem is that no-one seems to actually believe it’s possible. Not everyone but a shocking majority see it as no more than Marlian propaganda. Paradis is in factions now, they call themselves Jaegerists.”

“I’m not sure we have long before there’s a civil uprising on our hands as well.”

He keeps his hands steadfastly shoved into the pockets of his coat. Bone-pale, it billows and jerks in the stiff breeze from shore. The sea rolls in, gray and hateful, spitting salt. Bertholdt is certain that he has been miscast, that he should not be standing here and listen to Armin's plea for cooperation. There is a sniper somewhere, trained on the Eldian (the other one, he hopes). That sniper is who Bertholdt should be. Removed, untouched, unthinking, only a finger on the trigger. But instead he was forced into this corset of diplomacy, opposite a man who's dug his heels in over and over.

Distrust radiates from Bertholdt in waves. He stares at the blond soldier, styled as some emissary of peace. He listens because he has been ordered to listen. But, he hopes, his mind remains a fortress, a shut door that Armin is futilely knocking at. He cannot believe a word, not a single one, out of that man's mouth. Maybe they meant to test him with this, make him prove his resilience now that it has been bitterly burned into him.

God, he needs a cigarette.

But Armin is still talking and his words inspire ire and cynic amusement in turn. Bertholdt looks him over and then scans the horizon. No way they let him wander here unarmed, unprotected. Someone is waiting somewhere, for the warrior to make a wrong move. The Rumbling meanwhile looms unhindered on the edge of his mind, as it always has. He remembers standing on that wall, as a child and then five years later again. He remembers the hundred glacial heartbeats beneath his feet that ached to fall in tune with his.

"If Paradis eats itself it's not going to concern my superiors. They'd welcome it." Bertholdt remarks slowly, chewing on his words. "Judging by the name those... 'Jaegerists' are in contact with Eren somehow. Hm? If he is here then they must be near a communication hub. Liberio or one of the other harbor towns. We could turn over every stone but Zeke has his own group of loyalists. They'll shelter them."

There is a beat, a pause. Bertholdt's sunken eyes rest on Armin, the many tiny changes he's undergone since their last conversation. His heart chills and freezes over. The wind rises. There is a barb under his tongue that he slowly slips into his words as he pins the shorter man with his stare.

"We could try and lure him out."

“We both know it won’t stay in Paradis. Eren has marketed himself as a saviour and far too many in Marley need saving.”

If this was anyone else, Armin would be sweeter — he’d look gentler and sound softer but the other is far too familiar with him. With the games he plays, with the webs he can weave. He considers it a show of morale that he isn’t lying or twisting his words.

The politics game is one that Armin loathes — too many lies twisted together feigning justice and power. Eventually, there’s going to be a lie that’s simply too weak to hold the fortress up.

Bertholdt’s next words bring pause. The blond lets his eyes widen a little. Instead of responding, he sighs low and steady, turning his eyes to the sea. It’s turbulent and angry, like it already knows the outcome.

“You know how stubborn he is. He doesn’t have time to be lured and played with.” He frowns then, it makes him look older and far more tired, burrowing into his jacket to hide from the wind and billowing curls of blond.

“For all intents and purposes, neither of us have anything that Eren wants. I don’t count as a something. He’s gotten cruel. He’d kill me too.” He finishes that with a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes as he looks back up at Bertholdt. He’s grown taller yet still can’t reach the other’s eyes.

“Unless, of course, you think we have something Eren wants.”

He runs a mental map of Liberio and shakes his head. “Too close to the sea. Boats take twice as long as the train, requires too many people to bribe in order for safe passage. It’s too big of a risk. No.. if Eren and Zeke are to be found, we must consider the demographic they appeal to. We have to know who they’ve been in contact with that, even vaguely, would support them.”